Gen. Motors Corp. v. Read

• Decision Date: 06 September 1940
• Docket Number: No. 55.,55.
• Citation: 294 Mich. 558,293 N.W. 751
• Parties: GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION v. READ, Atty. Gen., et al.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

294 Mich. 558

293 N.W. 751

GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION

v.READ, Atty. Gen., et al.

No. 55.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Sept. 6, 1940.

Suit by the General Motors Corporation against Thomas Read, Attorney General of the state of Michigan, Richard B. Foster, Prosecuting Attorney for the County of Ingham, state of Michigan, and Charles H. Mahoney and others, Commissioners of Labor in and for the state of Michigan, for an injunction against enforcement of act providing that any employer employing both males and females in manufacture or production of any article, who shall discriminate in any way in payment of wages as between sexes, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. From decretal order dismissing bill of complaint, the plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.Appeal from Circuit Court, Ingham County, in Chancery; Hon. Charles H. Hayden, Circuit Judge.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Carlos J. Jolly, of Detroit (Jacob A. Tolonen and Bruce G. Booth, both of Detroit, of counsel) for appellant.

Thomas Read, Atty. Gen., and Edmund E. Shepherd and James W. Williams, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellees.

NORTH, Justice.

General Motors Corporation, a Delaware corporation, duly authorized to do business in Michigan, is engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling automobiles and parts in Lansing, Michigan. In its business the plaintiff corporation employs both men and women in various branches of its work, maintaining a wage scale, varying and graduated for both women and men, and said to be based upon the skill, experience, capacity, and ability of its employees.

In 1931 the legislature of Michigan enacted Act No. 328, § 556 of the Pub.Acts of Michigan, which was a re-enactment of Act No. 239 of the Pub.Acts of 1919. This act creates a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment or both; and the pertinent portion reads: ‘Sec. 556. Any employer of labor in this state, employing both males and females in the manufacture or production of any article, who shall discriminate in any way in the payment of wages as between sexes or who shall pay any female engaged in the manufacture or production of any article of like value, workmanship and production a less wage, by time or piece work, than is being paid to males similarly employed in such manufacture, production or in any employment formerly performed by males, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor: Provided, however, That no female shall be given any task, disproportionate to her strength, nor shall she be employed in any place detrimental to her morals, her health or her potential capacity for motherhood.’

In June or July, 1937, a factory inspector employed by te Department of Labor and Industry called upon the superintendent of the paint shop of the Oldsmobile Motor Works Division of General Motors Corporation in Lansing and demanded that the superintendent pay women employees the difference between what had been paid to men employed in the paint shop and that paid women, giving him until noon to make the payments and threatening that failure to pay would mean action, presumably under the above section 556 of Act No. 328. This was reported by the superintendent to his superior.

On March 8, 1938, the Attorney General of Michigan in an opinion had upheld the act as constitutional. April 7, 1938, a suit was started against plaintiff in the instant case by a woman employee, Florence St. John, who sued for the unpaid portion of back wages both in her own right and as assignee of other women employees. This suit was removed by defendant to the federal court and is still pending. September 27, 1939, the plaintiff corporation filed its bill herein for an injunction against enforcement of the quoted act, asserting it is unconstitutional as being in violation of Art. 2, § 16 of the Michigan Constitution, and § 1 of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, arbitrary, uncertain, confiscatory, and discriminatory. A declaratory decree is also sought. The Attorney General, the Prosecuting Attorney, and the Commissioners of Labor and Industry for the state of Michigan are made defendants. These defendants appeared and made a motion to dismiss the bill of complaint. Among the grounds urged for dismissal are the following: That the bill of complaint states no cause of action against defendants; that it seeks to restrain prosecution of criminal suits; that it seeks to restrain defendant public officials from performing their official duties; that complainant has a complete and adequate remedy at law; and that the court of equity is without jurisdiction. Upon hearing in the circuit court the motion to dismiss was granted and plaintiff has appealed.

In this record there is no affirmative countershowing as against the allegations contained in plaintiff's bill of complaint. It is elementary that on a motion to dismiss all facts well pleaded must be accepted as true. In the bill it is alleged that plaintiff fears and believes and has good reason to fear and believe that the defendants will attempt to compel plaintiff to comply with the pertinent provisions of Act 328 of the Pub.Acts of 1931 and that defendants will attempt to recover from plaintiff fines, penalties and forfeitures unless defendants are enjoined from so doing; and further: ‘That any effort to enforce said Section 556 or to collect fines, penalties, and forfeitures in accordance with the provisions of said section * * * would result in a multiplicity of suits and actions against the plaintiff, and would cause great and irreparable damage to the plaintiff in an amount of more than one thousand dollars * * *.’

A fair consideration of the bill of complaint discloses that plaintiff is confronted with numerous threatened suits, some civil and some criminal. As to threatened civil suits it is obvious that with the exception of plaintiff herein the parties who might be interested in such suits are not before the court in the instant case; and since it is not essential to decision herein, we disregard plaintiff's claim of threatened multiplicity of civil suits.

But plaintiff has alleged in its bill, and it must be accepted as true on this motion to dismiss, that it is threatened by defendants with criminal prosecutions which will result in great and irreparable damage; and the question at once arises whether this gives the court in equity jurisdiction. We think it does, and we have so held in former cases. Michigan Salt Works v. Baird, 173 Mich. 655, 139 N.W. 1030;Lewis v. State Board of Dentistry, 277 Mich. 334, 269 N.W. 194. See also Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714, 13 L.R.A.,N.S., 932, 14 Ann.Cas. 764. Since the trial court had jurisdiction on the ground of granting injunctive reliet against threatened criminal prosecutions of such scope and in such numbers as would constitute great and irreparable injury, it also had jurisdiction to pass upon the major question, i. e., the constitutionality of the quoted statute. If it is constitutional the circuit judge's dismissal of plaintiff's bill of complaint should be affirmed, but if it is unconstitutional his ruling should be reversed.

As above noted, the plaintiff and appellant contends that the quoted statute is unconstitutional for the following reasons:

1. It is uncertain.

2. It is arbitrary.

3. It is confiscatory.

4. It is discriminatory.

5. It denies equal protection of the laws.

The chief contention on which the claim that the statute is unconstitutional is based is that it is so uncertain and ambiguous that its attempted enforcement would be a denial of due process of law. Objection is made specifically to the use of the words ‘similarly’ and ‘formerly’ in the statute which we re-quote in part: ‘Any employer * * * who shall pay any...